40 



their young and tender state, take care to protect 

 them from cold and frost, so that they receive no 

 check either to retard or spoil their growth. (Hogg's 

 App. 196.) Our own practice is to prick the seed- 

 lings, singly, into 48s, to remain until fit to be planted 

 out in the open border. 



Where seedlings are grown by the florist, it is, 

 generally, in such numbers that protection at night is 

 impossible. The fault of protection being required 

 lies in almost every one sowing too early. It was 

 usual at one time to sow about Christmas ; we now 

 sow the first of April, and bloom them a month sooner 

 than formerly, with half the trouble. If planted 

 early, the check is mostly from cutting, cold winds, 

 throwing them back several weeks. Hence the prin- 

 cipal object being to keep the plants dwarf. 



Mr Sabine, late secretary to the Horticulture So- 

 ciety of London, has left on record suggestions for 

 raising seedlings that are still worthy of attention. 

 The seed, he says, should be gathered from those 

 plants whose colours and character are most likely to 

 please, always taking from the dwarfer ones, where 

 no preference exists on other accounts. Many of the 

 seedlings will follow their parent ; therefore, all that 

 are raised will now be new varieties. Double flower- 

 ing plants are more likely to spring from the seeds of 

 semi-double flowers, than from those of quite single 

 ones ; and the chances are, that seeds obtained from 



